Saint Cloche is proud to present Mask Off, an evocative new body of work by multidisciplinary artist Zelimir Jun Xiang Harasty. Harasty (b. 1992 Sydney, NSW) works across painting, sculpture and installation. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Art in Sculpture from the National Art School (2019), where he received the Parkers Fine Art Prize. His 2024 residency in Foshan culminated in the group show 回归 Hui Gui – The Return.
Presented during the Australian winter solstice, when night reaches its fullest and the return of light begins, Mask Off is a meditation on identity, memory and belonging. The exhibition also gestures across hemispheres to honour Xiàzhì (夏至), the Chinese summer solstice, traditionally observed with symbolic foods and communal rituals that celebrate renewal and connection to the land.
Harasty draws on this layered sense of time and place to reflect on heritage and lived experience. Born in Sydney to mixed Chinese and European ancestry, his practice explores the complex negotiations of growing up between cultures, being both and neither, and how this shaped his sense of belonging within the Australian landscape. A recent residency in Foshan, Luohang, China deepened his connection to ancestral roots and inspired this body of work, grounded in both tradition and contemporary life.
Blending painting, sculpture, Chinese calligraphy and poetic gesture, the works in Mask Off are emotionally charged and richly textured. Harasty’s sculptural training gives each surface a sense of structure and weight. Oral family history, particularly the stories shared with his grandfather in Tasmania, anchors the work in memory, myth and cultural continuity.
